Second off, that Darwin quote is so horrendously taken out of context and distorted by evolution deniers that it really borders on irony.

Darwin was actually talking about something I've said before on this site. That you can't trust your gut instincts when it comes to complex science because "common sense" often ends up being wrong. For example both relativity and quantum mechanics completely fly in the face of common sense, they seem utterly absurd, yet if they weren't both true the GPS in your truck wouldn't work.

Here's the quote the evolution deniers give from "on the origin of species":
"To suppose that the eye [...] could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. "

Ah hah! they say! even Darwin knew he was wrong... silly science tricks are for kids!

but what the evolution deniers will never tell you is what he said in the following two sentences:

"When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

ouch! the irony, it burns! In the Darwin quote that the ID-ers cite to support their position he actually completely disassembles their entire argument.

Greatwhitebuffalo-

fyi, Evolution is anything but a "random" process. Scientists never said that it was.

Mutations happen at random, but then natural selection selects only the mutations which are beneficial to the species. Quite contrary to being random, evolution very specifically selects the traits which are most beneficial to the species.

Calling it "random" is a trick used by evolution deniers to fool people. Its also a straw man argument because no scientist ever said it WAS random.

WA mtnhunter,

Funny I don't remember forcing you to read this thread?

The title pretty clearly states what we're talking about and if you're not interested, don't read it.

It is the "backlash and blowback" section after all.

bighunter-

First off, I love how you say to "get a different site" and then jump right into the conversation.

but lets take a look at the flaws in your line your reasoning.

"evolution shouldnt even be suggested in my thought of mind because you have no standing point on how the first cell was created"

Scientific theories only describe those phenomena which they are intended to describe. This seems self evident, but apparently I actually have to point it out. Evolution is a theory intended to describe the diversity of life, not its origin. Darwin himself spelled this out in "On The Origin of Species" and even today the groups of scientists investigating the two questions are distinct, separate groups.

Saying "Evolution does not explain the origin of life and is therefore invalid" is the logical equivalent of saying "the theory of gravity does not explain why my coffee mug is red and is therefore invalid".

Also, this argument is a great example of the logical fallacy called the argument ad ignorentum. This fallacy goes something like "Science cannot currently explain x, therefore x was caused by some supernatural force." Not only is it a fallacy, but its a particularly weak argument for the existence of the supernatural because it depends on scientific knowledge NOT advancing... and if there is one thing that science does relentlessly, its advance.

Finally, you said:
"(these numbers were not made up)there is only a 1/10 to the 130th power chance that the universe evolved on its own."

On the contrary my dear friend, those numbers are entirely "made up". every single such analysis I have seen has been based on ridiculously bogus assumptions. Cite your source and I will spell out the faulty assumptions for you.

"Plus, evolution is very contradictory to science. Ex. 'matter can not be created or destroyed'..."

Where do I even start on this one? first off, science dosen't say that. Every operating nuclear power plant in the world is destroying matter and billions of cosmic rays are hitting the upper atmosphere and creating matter as I type this. Second off, see explanation to bighunter about scientific theories only being intended to explain those phenomena which they were meant to explain.

"Planets would not have convienently landed perfectly into orbit"

Orbits MUST happen whenever you have two bodies whose relative velocity is less than the escape velocity of the system. Its not only convenient, its a necessity.

"If the earth was a few inches out of its orbit in either directions, it could not substain life."

This is entirely false. The earth could change it orbital radius by a significant percentage and still maintain life. The climate would be very different but life would endure without much trouble. This idea of "inches" is patently absurd, the earth's orbital radius has changed MUCH more than that since life began. This is because tidal effects convert kinetic energy into heat energy thus slowing down the earth and shortening the orbital radius.

"And you think the earth just miracously landed in a perfect position?"

this is another interesting fallacy called the "lottery fallacy" the classic example is that someone wins the lottery and says "the chances of me winning were one in a million, its a miracle, God must have wanted me to win" the flaw in that persons thinking is that they are failing to consider the other million people who bought a ticket but did not win the lottery. When you consider that winning is a one in million chance, but a million people played, not only is someone winning NOT miraculous, its downright probable.

In case you're not seeing the analogy, in this case you are the lottery winner, winning the lottery is having the earth be in the "goldielocks zone" where life can exist, and the millions of other lottery players are the trillions upon trillions of planets in the universe.

"they should have looked in the bible and seen were it said 'the whole earth round."

First off, if you are using this to argue that the holy scriptures are an infallible source of objective, repeatable scientific evidence, its an awful thin argument. But I'll bite, where's the passage that says the earth is round? and cite some examples of clergy using this passage to set the misguided masses strait?

ableskeever-

Glad to see you joined the conversation without reading everything above!

"it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creation/intelligent design"

absolutely not true. Science is supported by objective repeatable evidence and it makes predictions about the natural world that can then either be proven or falsified by experiment. Faith is believing without evidence and science by its very definition requires none of it.

"The odds of evolution are the same for a printer to explode and create a library"

Again, this is simply not true. You're arguing against an imaginary straw man. Not a single scientist in the whole world thinks evolution works that way. Kids are not being taught this. See the house building analogy I gave bamaoutdoorsmen above for a much better analogy of how scientists say evolution works.

"As our knowledge increases in science, the complexities and the way everything works together point more and more to intelligent design"

This is a complete non sequitur the logic you are employing is as follows: "if x is complex, then x is designed". It doesn't work that way. The pattern of mud splashes on my truck are very complex, they were not designed. If I accidentally drop a pack of cards on the floor, they will form a complex mathematical pattern that was not designed, The house in the example I gave bamaoutdoorsment would be extremely complex, but not designed, I could go on...

"So far, evolution is still a theory and is being taught as fact."

Exactly, Evolution is a theory! The trouble is scientists use the word theory very differently from its every day usage. Evolution deniers think they are insulting evolution by saying this but they are actually complimenting it. In science, theories hold more weight than facts. Facts are just observations, or statements of the result of an experiment, they don't explain anything and therefore have no predictive value. Theories, as scientists use the term, are explanations of natural phenomena that make predictions. Those predictions can then be subjected to experiments to either be confirmed of falsified. After an explanation has been subjected to many thousands of experiments and has never been falsified (i.e. only if its batting 1000) then and only then does it get to claim the title "theory". So by calling evolution a theory you are actually acknowledging its validity and strength.

In every day usage people use the term theory to describe any old idea they've cooked up. In science, this is called a hypothesis.

"If the schools are going to be teaching one point of view, then they should at least show the other"

I take it we're talking about science class? If we are, then I completely agree. If there are two competing scientific ideas, students should be taught both of them. Dark matter, punctuated equilibrium, and the K-T extinction are all great examples of this. The thing is, when it comes to explaining the diversity of life on earth there's only one game in the scientific town. That's evolution by natural selection.

I know what you're thinking, "Nuh uh!!, there's ID and creationism!" The trouble is that they're simply not science, they could be true, but it doesn't matter because they're either philosophy or theology, not science. If you want to teach them in a theology or philosophy classroom, go right ahead, be my guest.

Science makes predictions about the natural world that can then either be confirmed or falsified by experiment. ID and creationism do not do this. They are unfalsifiable, because no matter what experiment you ran, or no matter what observation you made, the answer would always be "God made it that way." It is literally impossible to formulate an experiment that could falsify them. Hands down, this means they're not science.

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."

-Judge John E. Jones III, conservative, churchgoing, republican judge, appointed by G.W. Bush on page 43 of the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision.

FYI,

That's another logical fallacy called the argument ad hominem.

Its when you can't refute a person's position using logic or evidence so you resort to insulting the person in a fruitless attempt to invalidate their argument.

Liberal politicians are great at it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

bighunter,

When you say "the world" do you mean the universe, the planet earth, or life on earth?

and just to be clear, I'm willing to discuss these side points as long as we're in agreement that they have no bearing on evolution, since it was never meant to address this topic.

rabbitpolice is a hypocrite of the worst kind.

In this thread:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/forums/backlash-and-blowback/are-we-christ...

and again above, rabbitpolice has pretended to be some kind of holier-than-thou super-christian who has the ability to judge his fellow men determine if they a "Christian enough."

While pretending to be the image of a perfect christian he is bearing false witness and making up hateful lies out of full cloth.

I seem to remember something about "judge not least ye be judged"...?

Respond to my challenges on the other thread, supply quotes from me to support your accusations above (you can click on my username and see every post I ever posted) Otherwise, apologize for making up hateful lies while pretending to be a "better Christian" than everyone else.

If, and only if you do that will I consider engaging with you in a conversation.

and like I said on the other post, you might want to talk to your pastor about the 9th commandment (or the 8th if you're catholic)

First and foremost, I strongly suggest you talk to one of those pastors you claim I hate so much and ask them what they think about you having the authority to declare whether or not someone is a "real Christian".

You are blatantly making up hateful lies and I've never seen anyone argue that "real Christians" behave in that way.

Produce the quotes where I say these things or apologize for telling lies about me.

I can easily answer all of your questions but I refuse to do so until you apologize for your lies or produce one of these quotes.

bighunter,

"christians never say. christians dont lie"

This is true, but that doesn't mean that anyone thinks lying is OK. Its one of the 10 commandments for crying out loud, that's a pretty big deal. rabbitpolice knows that making up hateful lies like he did was wrong. He knows that's not how Jesus would have handled the situation. He also knows that judging people is wrong, Jesus had a lot to say about judging people in the scriptures, and none of it was good. Hopefully, he will talk to his dad about these things and do the right thing by admitting that he lied and apologizing.

"you could be a evolutionist and a christian"

You don't have to tell me this. I don't know what an "evolutionist" is, but I strongly adhere to the scientific method and I am christian.

"god created the universe and then just made everything evolve slowly over billions of years so.......... evolution does not actually contradict a supernatural being that created the universe"

exactly!, you're friends here seem to think that in order to think rationally and follow the scientific method you need to be an atheist. That's total BS and I'm glad to see a young chap like yourself has realized that.

Bamaoutdoorsmen-

Thank you for apologizing, I could have been a little more gentle with my comments as well.

"My arguement is based on what i have been told by atheists"

What do atheists have to do with anything? we're talking about science here. I'm not an atheist and I'm talking about the scientific stance, not atheism. Secondly, if any atheist actually said those things about explosives and houses and what not they were either very poorly educated, very immature, or both.

"If your walking in the woods and see a house, do you assume somebody built it or that a mixture of chemicals and gases caused an explosion, leading to the expolosion of trees perfectlt forming to boards and dressers, the people inside were created by a sudden change in a bacterias growth rate leading to a change in form"

This is both a straw man argument, and a repeat of the non sequitur you made before, you are essentially saying "X is complex, therefore X is designed" again.

really?

how can anyone not want to know how the world around them works?

this stuff is fascinating, don't you want to know why the bucks go into rut?

why do largemouths cling to cover on some days and swim in open water on other days?

Don't you want to know why some guns can drive nails at 200yds and others can't even hit the target at that range?

all this stuff is science, its fun, and its awesome.

ableskeever-

"Why aren't animals as neurologically evolved as humans?"

Our distant ancestors were no more neurologically advanced that other animals. The process went like this:

-At some point (a couple million years ago) some of our ancestors had a mutation that caused them to be just a little tiny bit smarter than the rest of their species.

-The individuals who had that gene for being a little tiny bit smarter were more successful than the others. This means they lived longer and had more offspring than the individuals with out that gene.

-Eventually the whole population has that gene for being just a little tiny bit smarter. Then, another mutation pops up that makes some of them just a little bit smarter than that, and the whole process repeats itself over and over again over millions of years and you end up with rather smart species.

-The catch to wrapping your mind around this process is to try and grasp how long millions of years is. Remember, the entire history of human civilization has only taken one half of one percent of a million years. Jesus lived only about two tenths of one percent of a million years ago. Yet our branch of the family tree probably split off from our unintelligent cousins something like 50 million years ago. Even teeny tiny, slow changes end up being a big deal on those time scales.

why didn't, say, snails go through this process and end up just as smart? There's a couple of reasons.

First, their environment really doesn't provide any selective pressure for intelligence. They don't need to solve complex problems or interact socially like our ancestors did, so even if a "smart" gene did pop up, those individuals wouldn't necessarily have more offspring.

Second, It could be as simple as that they haven't had the right set of mutations pop up over time to produce a complex nervous system.

"Carbon dating has come up false on many occasions "

This is absolute and total nonsense that you (and about half the country) have been fed by dishonest evolution deniers. To explain why, we need to get into some some physics, so bear with me...

Certain types of elements are too heavy for there charge and this makes them unstable. Since they are unstable, they give off radiation which allows them to transform into another, more stable element. They follow a perfect exponential decay curve that you can predict with calculations and then reproduce in the lab, and the calculations match the results perfectly. The curve tells you how much of the old, unstable element will be left after a certain period of time, versus how much of the new, stable element there will be.

Depending on how unstable the element is, the half life of these curves (time to drop to 50% of the original level)can range from a couple of seconds, to a couple million years.

We can use this decay to date things. Chemistry can tell us the original concentrations of the two elements based on what kind of rock or substance we're dealing with. Then, we can take an object and measure how much of the old unstable element is there versus how much of the new stable element there is. You can then plug that ratio into that nice, clean decay curve we were talking about earlier and figure out how long its been since that substance was formed.

Its pretty cool, and its just one of the dozens of way we know that the earth is 750000 times older than the bible says it is.

So what the evolution deniers talking about?
one of three things:

1) "radioactive dating says the mt. Saint Hellens lava dome is millions of years old, but its only 29 years old!"
This was total BS, it was done by creationists who knew ahead of time that they were using the wrong technique for rock that young. They used an element that has a half life of many millions of years. Obviously, not enough of the old unstable had decayed into the new stable element to be detectable. So they dropped the sample into the dating machine, it gave them an error that there was not enough of the new element to get a meaningful date. They over-rode the error and went screaming to the press with the "millions of years" number that they knew was BS. The whole thing was a shame and rather despicable for people who claims to be religious.

2) "The dates from different elements don't agree!"
This has a kernel of truth, but is very misleading. We don't have the ability to measure the amounts of each measurement down to the molecule. This means we can't say 100% exactly where we are on the curve. So, when you date a dinosaur bone say, you don't an an answer like "exactly 65 million years", you get an answer like "65 million years, plus or minus 2 million years." Some elements date the earth at something like "4.56234 billion plus or minus .0034 billion years" for one element and "4.56302 billion plus or minus .0057 billion years." The ranges given all overlap for crying out loud! they all agree! And to make things worse, all of difference in error can be explain by our inability to exactly measure the elements. There logic literally goes like this "one element says the earth is 4.562 billion years old, another says its 4.563 billion years old, therefore it must be 6000 years old" come on! give me a Break!

3) "the curves of the various elements can change!"
This one is total BS, first off, the measured curves all exactly match the mathematical predictions. Second off, they've actually tried to change the curves in a lab and couldn't do it. Third off, if they were all changing why would they always match the predictions (which don't change over time) and all change in exactly such a way that they all point to the earth being 4.56 billion years old?

bighunter-

Great! I hope I have convinced you not to use the god of the gaps argument any more.

The first thing we can say about the cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of god is that neither are science because they can't be subjected to a test that could falsify them.

That means we're in the realm of theology/philosophy, and that realm is a little too squishy for my liking. But what the heck, I'll throw my two cents in.

teleological argument-
My understanding of it: "some things are too complex to have happened naturally, therefore something supernatural caused them, That supernatural something is God, therefore God exists"

my opinion: This whole argument takes as its premise that some things are too complex to have emerged naturally. The whole argument collapses if that is not true. I think people who assert this are massively underestimating nature. Its really a logical fallacy called the "argument from personal incredulity" which basically says "I, personally cannot imagine a way that X can occur, therefore X could not have occurred." You can pretty easily see how this argument is bogus.

plus, lets look at people who have argued "X is too complex to have happened naturally" in the past. For "X" they have used lightning, the movements of the planets, electricity, gravity, etc... how did these people turn out? They got egg on their face, just like the "God of the gaps" people. This is because they were betting on scientific knowledge not advancing, and that's a loosing bet.

cosmological argument-
My understanding of it: "every effect has a cause, this creates an infinitely long chain of effects and causes, an infinitely long chain is not possible, therefore there must be an ultimate cause that set off the chain, that ultimate cause is God"

my opinion: This whole argument hangs on the premise that an infinitely long chain of causes and effects is not possible. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Math seems to describe the universe pretty well and math certianly no problem with the concept of infinity, as an engineer, I use it all the time.

You also have the possibility that the universe is not an infinitely long chain of causes, but instead is a loop of causes. That would satisfy the requirement of every effect needing a cause without requiring an "ultimate cause." That concept might be weird but that's exactly how three dimensional space works, its finite in size but has no clear edge. If you went far enough to the left of the milky way, you'd end up on the right of the milky way. Another analogy is the surface area of a beach ball. The surface area of a beach ball is a finite value, but the surface has no clear edge or end.

The cosmological argument is a lot better than the lame-o teleological argument, but its by no means bulletproof.

Bella-

I know, don't you love the irony of someone using a computer and the internet to trash on science?

Do you have to deal with any anti-science nonsense within your faith?

"Whats the point in figuring it all out?"

seriously? seriously? did you seriously just ask that? are you seriously suggesting that whenever we run up against something we don't understand, we should just say "God did it" and leave it at that? seriously?

Do you know where we'd if everyone thought like that? the stone age! I'm not even exaggerating, we might not even be there because we wouldn't have figured out the whole "fire" thing!

If people just said "God makes birds fly" and didn't try to figure out how they fly, we wouldn't have airplanes.

If Ben Franklin had just said "God makes lightning" and didn't try to figure out how it worked, we wouldn't have electricity. That also means no trucks, computers, tv's, microwaves, or anything else with electronics.

If Maxwell had just said "God makes magnetism" and didn't try to figure out how it worked, we wouldn't have any kind of cell phones, radios, wireless internet, satellites, lasers, CD's, DVD's, or anything else that uses radio waves.

If Currie had just said "God made those rocks weird" and didn't try to explain radioactivity then we wouldn't have nuclear power plants, x- rays, cat scans, pet scans, and smoke detectors.

If doctors had just said "God makes people sick" and didn't try to figure out how or why they were sick then our children would still be dieing of polio, mumps, measles, small pox, cholera, whooping cough and hepatitis. The average life span would still be 35 years!

don't think evolution has anything to do with this? Guess again, evolution is the basis of all modern biology. Every vaccine you have ever taken was designed by evolutionary biologists. Most modern pharmaceuticals are designed by evolutionary biologists. Almost all commercially grown food crops have had evolutionary biologists involved in their development.

Modern society is built on the concept of "figuring it out" it blows my mind that members of the most advanced society ever can stand on the shoulders of giants, enjoy long life, disease free childhoods, cheap and safe food, and fluffy technology like computers and the internet, then look down and spit in the eye of those scientific giants whose shoulders were standing on.

I'm dumbfounded...

bella-

Don't forget, after he shoots all his technology with his shot gun he'll have to melt it down. That gun powder comes from chemistry and mechanical engineers used science to test and design the gun itself!

Also, he'll have to stop buying food (you know, grown using tractors, pesticides, and all that jazz)

and he'll have to force all of his loved ones to stop taking modern medical treatment of any kind... hope he's not too close to anyone who is too young or too old.

ok, lets assume he's gone and answer his questions in case any of you guys wanted to know how he was wrong. The only thing he asked that hasn't been addressed yet is this:

"Where are all the missing links that should cover the earth if evolution is true?"

I'm not even exaggerating when I say that scientists call this line "the creationist's favorite lie"

So, when he says "missing links" he is talking about what scientists call "transitional forms". Essentially, an animal in transition from one "form" to another.

If you want to get technical, every single living thing alive today and single fossil ever found is a transitional form from what it used to be to what to it will be in the future. (Homo sapiens for example, is a transitional form from Homo rhodesiensis to some unknown future species.) So then why does rabbitpolice say transitional forms don't exist? That's why its called the creationist's favorite lie.

That being said, this does not necessarily mean that the term "transitional form" is meaningless. It is usually applied to mean a species at one of the major branch points of the tree of life. For example, the point where vertebrates split from invertebrates, the point where land animals split off from fish, the point where the ancestors of whales first took back to the water, etc...

We have TONS of examples of these, if you head to your local natural history museum you can pry see a couple. Here's a short list of just a few examples of series of transitional fossils:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

I am not going to address the folks above who apparently have placed themselves in the role "thought police" and decided that I must justify my posts to them before I can make them. I thought we lived in a free country, not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia?

I am going to address people like RJ and any other rational thinkers still reading this thread. Notice the difference in the discussion between myself and the evolution deniers.

When they present a claim (earth is 6000yrs old, no transitional fossils, ID is science, etc...) Notice what I do, I rationally and logically lay out why their claim is wrong. In other words, I present a rational argument.

When I present a claim, What do they do? Do they attempt to rationally and logically refute my claim? Nope, not once. They do one of two things, they either pretend it didn't happen and jump to an entirely new topic, or they switch to an ad hominem attack by making up lies to insult me like:

-I have a "a loathing for Christians and pastors"
(when in reality I AM a Christian and I am quite good friends with my pastor)

-I Give myself "+1's"
(when I don't and there's no way for him to even know even if I did)

-I'm a cultist
(When I had clearly stated that I was a Christian several times by that point so either he hasn't read the very posts he's talking about or he's blatantly lying)

-I'm an atheist
(see above)

-I am "unwilling to evaluate evidence"
(when in reality I've discussed evidence 10 times more than anyone else on the thread, again either not reading or blatantly lying)

-childish playground insults like I have a "little head" and don't have a job and get picked on at work.
(think about it, even if those things were true there's no way for them to know, they're blatantly lying)

etc...

So friends, which side of an argument do you think you should trust?

The side that rationally and logically supports their arguments while refuting their opponents claims?

Or the side that ignores evidence presented to them, haplessly jumps from one claim to another, and then when they can't refute their opponents claim, they resort to making up hateful lies and ad hominem arguments in a vein attempt to discredit him?

"you are just trying to get people to believer you because your a good thinker."

I would like to officially nominate that for the funniest sentence ever.

...and I rest my case.